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• History
  • Bowls and pins in North America
• Play of the game

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Bowling, also called tenpins, game in which a heavy ball is rolled down a long, narrow lane toward a group of objects known as pins, the aim being to knock down more pins than an opponent. The game is quite different from the sport of bowls, or lawn bowls, in which the aim is to bring the ball to rest near a stationary ball called a jack.

There are many forms of bowling, but tenpins, the most widely played variation, is the principal form in the United States, Canada, western Europe, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America. Its many variations include duckpins, candlepins, fivepins, skittles, and ninepins, with differences within the framework of each of the games.

History

Origin and early period

Articles found in the tomb of an Egyptian child buried in about 3200 bc included nine pieces of stone, to be set up as pins, at which a stone “ball” was rolled, the ball having first to roll through an archway made of three pieces of marble. The modern sport of bowling at pins probably originated in ancient Germany, not as a sport but as a religious ceremony. As early as the 3rd or 4th century ad, in rites held in the cloisters of churches, parishioners may have placed their ever-present club, or Kegel (the implement most Germans carried for sport and, certainly, self-protection), at one end of a runway resembling a modern bowling lane. The Kegel was said to represent the Heide (“heathen”). A stone was rolled at the Heide, and those successfully toppling it were believed to have cleansed themselves of sin. Although the peasants’ club evolved into pins, the association remained, and even today bowlers are often called keglers.

The passage of time brought an increase in the size of the stone rolled at pins, and eventually the ball came to be made of wood. Many variations of the game developed, some played with three pins, others with as many as 17. A biographer of the 16th-century cleric Martin Luther has written that Luther built a bowling lane for his children which he occasionally visited, sometimes throwing the first ball.

Bowling Gambling Games

Among other significant historical references to bowling are an account of a great feast given the citizenry of Frankfurt in 1463, at which the venison dinner was followed by bowling; notations from 1325 in which “gambling on bowling” in Berlin and Cologne was limited to five shillings; and the award of an ox to the winner of a bowling competition in 1518, given by the city of Breslau (now Wrocław, Pol.).

In the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, the game spread into the Low Countries and also into Austria and Switzerland. The playing surfaces were usually cinders or clay, specially treated and sun-baked to a hardness resembling concrete. The roofing over of lanes, first done in London for lawn bowls around 1455, was the beginning of bowling as an all-weather, around-the-clock game. When the lanes were covered or put into sheds (called Kegelbahns in Germany and Austria and usually attached to village taverns or guest houses), the playing surfaces ranged from wood or hardened clay to, in later years, asphalt.

Bowls and pins in North America

There is confusion about how and when bowling at pins came to North America, arising from the inconsistent use of the terms bowl, bowler, and bowling. The early British settlers brought lawn bowls with them to America because that was the game they knew best. Dutch explorers under Henry Hudson were said to have brought some form of pin bowling.

Many of the early European pin games involved rolling the ball along a wooden plank, 12 to 18 inches (30 to 46 centimetres) wide and 60 to 90 feet (18 to 27 metres) long, toward a diamond-shaped formation of nine pins. The plank still can be found in parts of Europe, notably in eastern European countries, where bowling games called bohle, asphalt, and schere are popular. In these, the nine pins are smaller than tenpins, and the duckpin-type ball, without finger holes, is held in the palm of the hand. The Netherlands has a “plank” game in which a large ball, with only a thumbhole, is rolled on the plank toward the nine pins. The earliest known reference to bowling in the United States was made by Washington Irving in his short story “Rip Van Winkle” (1819–1820).

Emergence of the tenpin game

By the mid-1830s, as bowling at pins was flourishing, the scourge that periodically struck the game in Germany, France, England, and other countries—gambling—became a plague on the U.S. bowling scene. To combat the problem, the state legislature of Connecticut in 1841 banned the playing of “Nine-Pins, whether more or less than nine-pins are used.” However, a month before the Connecticut legislation, the town of Perry, N.Y., had enacted a law banning tenpins. There are other earlier signs of tenpin bowling, including a painting, traced to 1810, that shows English dandies playing a game with 10 oddly shaped pins set up outside a factory in Ipswich, Eng., an area that was populated by many Dutch immigrants in the 1700s. Regardless of how tenpins came into being, its popularity spread as German immigrants began populating Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis (Mo.), Cincinnati (Ohio), Detroit, and other cities. Although intercity bowling events were becoming common, the lack of uniform playing rules and equipment specifications stifled the development of the game. In 1875 delegates from nine bowling clubs in New York City and Brooklyn, N.Y., organized the National Bowling Association. Some of the legislation agreed upon then is still in effect in modified form, but the group lacked national acceptance.

Organization and tournaments

Disagreement over rules continued, principally as an alignment of New York bowlers against everyone else. On Sept. 9, 1895, the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was organized in New York City. Rules and equipment standards were developed, and the game as it finally was organized remained basically unchanged as the sport grew steadily. An early technological development that helped the sport’s progress was the introduction of the hard rubber ball in 1904, its predecessor having been made of lignum vitae, a tropical wood that was durable but that often chipped or otherwise lost its shape. The next big advance was the introduction of the automatic pin-setting machine in the early 1950s. Later, balls made of polyester and urethane were developed and in some cases replaced the hard rubber ball.

In 1901 the ABC started its national tournament. The Women’s International Bowling Congress (WIBC) was organized in 1916 and conducted annual national championships from 1917. While the ABC and WIBC are autonomous organizations, each billing itself as the “world’s largest” men’s or women’s sports organization, respectively, they share a number of functions, including equipment testing and research and the joint issuance of credentials to the mixed leagues that made up more than 70 percent of their late 1980s combined membership of approximately 7,000,000. A third membership organization, the Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA; established in 1982), administers to the league and tournament needs of young bowlers through college age.

In the late 20th century it was estimated that more than 60,000,000 persons bowled at least once or twice a year in the United States. The backbone of the sport continued to be its highly organized, competitive league structure. Most men’s and women’s leagues consist of eight to 12 teams, but some have 40 or more, depending on the number of lanes in the bowling centre. League play is conducted under rules laid down by the three major membership organizations, including the handling of prize funds by the adult leagues. The prize funds are developed from the contestants’ entry fees and are distributed to the various teams and individuals on a performance basis.

Professional bowling

The Professional Bowlers Association of America (PBA) was organized in 1958. It quickly developed a star system and a tournament tour fashioned after that of professional golf. PBA members, helped by a booming television industry, were soon playing for more than $1 million in yearly prize money; this figure had grown to more than $7 million by the late 1980s, though by the early 21st century the tour’s total prize monies awarded had dropped to about $4 million. Don Carter became the leading winner in the 1950s, succeeded by Dick Weber in the 1960s and Earl Anthony into the 1980s. The Professional Women Bowlers Association (1959; since 1981 called the Ladies Pro Bowlers Tour [LPBT]) began modest tournament play in the early 1960s. A major influence in development of the game was the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America, founded in 1932. In addition to its trade association functions, it is affiliated with a number of tournaments, most notably the All-Star tournament, a match game event begun in 1941 that in 1971 became the U.S. Open and a part of the PBA tour. The National Bowling Council, founded in 1943 by manufacturers, proprietors, and membership groups, concerns itself with national promotional campaigns and other activities.

Tenpins in other countries

The first tenpin lanes in Europe were installed in Sweden in 1909. Attempts to popularize tenpin bowling elsewhere in Europe were unsuccessful over the next several decades, but the game became popular in Great Britain during World War II, when hundreds of lanes were installed on U.S. military bases.

As league bowling in the United States peaked in the mid-1960s, equipment manufacturers began looking elsewhere for new markets. With assistance from the ABC, the British Tenpin Bowling Association was formed in 1961 and was ready for the boom. With the same ABC assistance, Australia followed suit. Mexico, where Emperor Maximilian had installed a skittles alley in Chapultepec Castle a century earlier, joined the tenpin trend, as did other Latin American countries.

By the early 1970s the bowling boom had spread to Japan. Leading players for the PBA were invited to compete in an annual Japanese tournament. Unlike the United States, where the male professionals dominated television, however, the most popular bowlers on Japanese television were women. Bowling also became popular in other Asian localities, including Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Korea, and Indonesia.

International competition

Documents indicate that an international competition was held in Hannover, Ger., as early as 1891. An early bowling proprietor and promoter in New York City was so taken with the idea of international play that he sponsored an event in Union Hill, N.J., in 1900, but the use of the word international was only thinly justified by the appearance of some teams from Canada. Competitions apparently limited to ninepins and other “small ball” games were held in the German cities of Solingen (1904), Dresden (1908), and Berlin (1914). Few other than German bowlers were entered.

In 1923 a group of American bowlers toured Sweden and were roundly defeated by their hosts. The outcome was the same in 1926, at which time teams from Denmark, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany joined the Swedes and Americans in forming the International Bowling Association. In 1929 they held what came to be called the Third International tournament, again in Sweden, followed by a Fourth International held in New York City in 1934. Germany hosted the Fifth International in 1936, as a prelude to, but having no connection with, the Olympic Games in Berlin. It was the last international meet of any consequence until the Fédération Internationale des Quilleurs (FIQ) was formed in 1952 to coordinate international amateur competition. Its headquarters is in Helsinki, and it has grown to more than 70 member nations.

The first world tournament of the FIQ was held in Helsinki in 1954, and from 1967 championships were played every four years. Competition is held in three zones—American, European, and Asian. The organization has four sections, the principal one being devoted to tenpins. The other three are the small-ball games, schere, bohle, and asphalt. FIQ competition is for nonprofessionals; and gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded to champions and runners-up. Bowling was accepted as an exhibition sport in the summer 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.

Background

Sixty-five million people fling heavy balls down bowling lanes in the United States each year at speeds up to 20 miles an hour. Other than the finger holes and eye-catching colors, the balls look simple—deceptively so. At prices ranging from less than $50 to around $300, the balls are much more than solid spheres.

Bowling balls are designed to perform best on various types of surfaces (lanes are not as simple as they look, either) and to compliment the style and strength of an individual bowler. Wooden bowling lanes are treated with mineral oil daily to protect them from the action of the balls. Typically, the first two-thirds of the lane is oiled rather heavily (the exact degree varies by establishment), while the final third is oiled lightly. As a result, a properly thrown ball will slide straight down the lane until it encounters the less-oiled surface, and then curve toward the pins as it gains better traction. Matching the rotational characteristics of the ball to the release style and strength of the individual bowler gives the best results.

History

Both lawn bowling (in which balls are rolled at a target ball) and pin bowling have been played for thousands of years. The excavated grave of an Egyptian child buried 5,200 years ago yielded a set of stone pins apparently used for a form of bowling.

Lawn bowling was quite popular in Europe during the Middle Ages. In 1366, King Edward III outlawed the game so his troops would pay more attention to their archery practice. Similarly, ninepin bowling (with the pins arranged in a diamond pattern) was outlawed in Connecticut and New York during the early 1800s because it was associated with heavy gambling. This led to the addition of a tenth pin (arranged in the now-common triangular pattern) to circumvent the law.

Lawn-bowling balls are either weighted or shaped asymmetrically so that they will curve when rolled. Balls used in pin bowling must be exactly round in shape, but they contain hidden weights that affect their balance and rotation. They also differ from lawn-bowling balls by having finger holes; they may have two (for the thumb and middle finger) or, more popularly, three (for the thumb and middle and ring fingers). When a bowler purchases a ball, the holes are drilled to fit his or her hand.

Structural Evolution

Historically, most bowling balls were made of Lignum vitae, a very hard wood. In 1905, the first rubber bowling ball (the Evertrue) was produced, followed nine years later by Brunswick Corporation's rubber Mineralite ball. Hard rubber balls dominated the market until the 1970s, when polyester balls were developed. In the 1980s, urethane bowling balls were introduced. Around 1990, dramatic changes were made in the design of the ball cores (dense blocks within the ball that modify the ball's balance). Shortly thereafter, reactive urethane was introduced as a new coverstock (the ball's surface layer) option.

Also referred to as resin, the new reactive urethane coverstock was used in combination with innovative core designs, drastically changing the sport. During the first full winter season in which reactive balls were used, the number of perfect games (12 successive throws in which all 10 pins are knocked down) increased by nearly 20%—the American Bowling Congress reported 14,889 in 1991-92 and 17,654 the following year.

Some examples of core shapes are lightbulb, spherical, and elliptical. Combination cores are made by enclosing a core of one shape and density within a second core of another shape and density. The main core may be supplemented by adding a collar or weight block to the core or by embedding small counter-weights separately in the interior of the ball.

Since about 1993, bowling ball manufacturers have been using computerized design software to generate frequent improvements in core design. Designs have become so sophisticated that even for one model of ball, a different core design may be used for different ball weights (e.g., one for 12-and 13-pound balls, another for 14-pound balls, and a third for 15-and 16-pound balls). A developmental chemist working for a major manufacturer was quoted in a 1996 Design News article as saying, 'Not long ago, a company could introduce a good ball and keep the market for two years. Now products come out so quickly that you need to have new designs ready all the time.'

Raw Materials

Manufacturers currently use three types of plastics as coverstock material. Polyester, the least expensive, produces the smallest amount of hook on the back third of the lane because it is relatively unaffected by varying amounts of oil on the lane surface. In the middle of the price range, urethane balls offer more hooking action than polyester balls but are more durable and require less maintenance than reactive urethane balls. At the top of the price scale, reactive urethane (resin) balls provide the greatest hooking ability and deliver more power to the pins on impact. Various ball manufacturers have formed alliances with chemical suppliers to formulate proprietary materials by blending various resins with urethane.

Bowling Gambling Games

Cores are made by adding a heavy substance such as bismuth graphite or barium either to resin, making a very dense type of plastic, or to a ceramic material. An article written by ball manufacturer Track Inc. asserts that fired ceramic cores result in harder-hitting balls because no energy is absorbed by the ceramic part of the core. It also explains that fired ceramic cores cannot be altered during finger-hole drilling, whereas cores made of millable ceramic alloys can be. Millable ceramic alloys are made by blending ceramic powder with a binding agent. These types of ceramic cores are softer and less adhesive than fired ceramics, and that they do absorb energy upon impact with the pins.

In some balls, 2-4 oz (56.7-113.4 g) of iron oxide is used as a weight block to shift the ball's center of gravity toward one side of the core. Zirconium is used by one manufacturer for counterweights.

The Manufacturing
Process

Between the early 1800s and the early 1990s, most bowling balls were made of three-piece construction. A small amount of dense material was poured into spherical core mold to create a pancake-like core. Then the remainder of the core mold was filled with a less-dense core material. Finally, the core was centered in a mold and a layer about 1 in (2.54 cm) thick of coverstock was poured around it. Since being pioneered by manufacturer Faball Inc. in the early 1990s, a two-piece construction method has become more popular.

Making the core

• 1 For the particular model of ball being manufactured, a mold is formed to the core shape developed during the computerized design process. The appropriate material is poured into the core mold and allowed to harden. The solid core is removed from its mold.
• 2 A second step may be necessary to finish the core. For example, some ceramic cores are fired in a kiln. A compound core may be formed by inserting the first core into a second mold and pouring material of a different density around all or part of it.

Forming the shell

• 3 The finished core is placed inside a spherical mold called the coverstock
  Some examples of bowling bowl core shapes are lightbulb, spherical, and elliptical. Combination cores are made by enclosing a core of one shape and density within a second core of another shape and density. The main core may be supplemented by adding a collar or weight block to the core or by embedding small counterweights separately in the interior of the ball
  mold. The core is attached to a pin that projects inward from the shell of the mold. The pin holds the core in the correct position. If the pin points toward the center of the mold, the core is said to be pin in; if it is tilted away from the center, the core is pin out.
• 4 The coverstock material is poured into the mold, encasing the core, and is allowed to harden. The thickness of the coverstock may be as little as 1 in (2.54 cm) or as much as 2 in (5.08 cm), depending on the design of the particular ball.

Filling the gaps

• 5 When the ball is removed from the coverstock mold, there is a hole where the core-holding pin had been. A plastic dowel is inserted into the hole and cemented in place. The pin is a different color than the coverstock. After the ball has been purchased, the pin will be used as a guide for positioning the finger holes to take advantage of the core design.
• 6 Fill material is added to the logo imprint that was molded into the ball. This may be the same color as the pin, or it may be a different color. The logo is located at the top of the ball, that is, above its center of gravity.

Finishing

• 7 The ball is finished to the proper size specification by turning it on a lathe and shaving off enough coverstock to achieve the right shape or it may be done on a centerless grinder that scours the ball into the desired size and roundness.
• 8 Finally, the surface of the ball is finished to the desired texture. It is sanded to either a matte finish or to an appropriate degree of polish, indicated by the roughness of the sanding material (generally ranging from 240-600 grit).
• 9 The ball is boxed and shipped to the company's distributor.

Bowling Gambling Games To Play

Quality Control

When the American Bowling Congress (ABC) was founded in 1894, one of its primary missions was to standardize the sport by developing equipment specifications. The current rules require a ball to have a diameter between 8.500-8.595 in (about 21.6-21.8 cm), and to have a weight of 16 lb (about 7.3 kg) or less. No minimum weight is specified, and some balls weigh as little as 6 lb (about 2.7 kg). In order to earn the ABC/WIBC (Women's International Bowling Congress) seal of approval, sample balls of each model must be sent to the ABC for testing and verification of meeting the official standards.

In response to the dramatic changes in ball designs that began in the early 1990s, the ABC issued additional regulations in 1994. For example, the new rules establish limits on the ball's radius of gyration, which is the distance between the ball's rotational axis and its center of gravity. The rule limits this value to 2.430-2.800 in (6.2-7.1 cm). Other ABC specifications govern such technical characteristics as the ball's coefficient of restitution (a measure of the energy transferred from the ball to the pins), surface hardness, and hooking potential.

The Future

The dramatic innovations in bowling ball design and materials since the early 1990s have been credited with leveling the playing field for bowlers of all sizes and strengths. Writing in Popular Mechanics magazine, John G. Falcioni noted that some bowlers unhappily refer to the new-generation balls as cheaters. He summed up the impact of ball refinements by writing, 'The sport has become so sophisticated that knowledge of engineering and physics is likely to prove more helpful in throwing strikes than doing curls with a dumbbell.'

Where to Learn More

Periodicals

'CAD Helps Bowlers Improve Their Form.' Design News (August 26, 1996): 29.

Falcioni, John G. 'Strike Force.' Popular Mechanics (March 1994): 60-63+.

Other

'Ball Tech. Bowling This Month magazine. http://users.aol.com/phorvick/balltech/htm (15 Feb. 1998).

'Bowling Equipment Specifications.' Bowling Page-Information. http://www.icubed.com/users/allereb/equip.html (15 Feb. 1998).

'Frequently Asked Questions.' 19 Aug. 1995. Bowling Page. http://www.icubed.com/users/allereb/faq.html (15 Feb. 1998).

'Reactive, Urethane & Polyester. Match the Ball to the Conditions.' The Complete Bowling Index. http://www.bowlingindex.com/products/balls/balls.htm (15 Feb. 1998).

'Why Use a Ball with Ceramics?' The Complete Bowling Index. http://www.bowlingindex.com/products/balls/ceramic.htm (15 Feb. 1998).